I Tracked 8 Years of Business Revenue in a Heat Map—Here’s the Story Behind It

When you scroll online these days, you’ll find no shortage of flashy revenue milestones and six-figure promises. But the truth?

Shifting your business model—especially in a way that’s purpose-driven and sustainable—takes time.

And a lot of inner work.

And a whole lot of decisions that don’t always make sense until years later.

That’s why I made this heat map of my revenue over the past 6 years.

Yes, because I’m a nerd.

But also because I wanted to visualize how my time, energy, and business model have evolved since I stopped doing 100% client work and began creating a more purposeful offer mix and sustainable revenue model.

And if you’ve ever thought about stepping away from 1:1 services, creating a course, launching a membership, or speaking on bigger stages—maybe this will give you a peek behind the curtain of what that process can really look like.

My Biz Revenue Heat Map Since 2017

A quick note before we go any further: I’m not sharing specific revenue numbers here on purpose. Money is personal, and context is everything. I never want someone to see my numbers and either feel “behind” or inflated by comparison. The point of this exercise isn’t to hit a certain number—it’s to show how I’ve made intentional shifts to align my business with my life, my values, and what I needed in different seasons.

Growth hasn’t been linear. After becoming a mom, my profit dipped—something that brought up all kinds of internal stories I had to work through. But again, that’s part of the journey, too.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what you’re seeing in the heat map (scroll down for the full story behind each shift):

• 2017: Left my biggest client to make space for new ideas
• 2018: Focused on high-revenue projects to self-fund growth
• 2019: Launched my first scalable offer, the Create Your Purpose® Collective
• 2020: Pandemic-fueled growth from years of audience building
• 2021: Recalibration when marketing momentum shifted
• 2022: Maternity leave, blurry business year
• 2023–24: Slow re-entry + leaning on services to boost cash flow
• 2025: Took a retainer to free up creative energy

But a heat map can only show you so much.

The real story lives in the context.

So if you’re curious about what a purposeful business journey looks like, buckle up and come along for the ride…

Year-by-Year Breakdown and the Choices behind the Char

✌️ 2017: Leap and the Net (May) Appear?

Fresh off the plane from my honeymoon, I knew something had to change. I didn’t want to feel dread cracking open my laptop in the morning; I craved more meaning and purpose. So, after months of building an exit strategy, I bid adieu to my biggest client (and a hefty retainer) to pursue my own ideas full-time.

This is the year I made the first intentional shift. The heat map won’t show the financial impact (yet), but the internal shift was BIG.

💰 2018: The Year of the Dentists

Imagine me—speaking to 1,000 dentists in Atlanta, then designing websites and brands for a few of them.

My goal? Stack revenue so I could reinvest in the vision I was still trying to define. I didn’t know exactly what Create Your Purpose® would become, but I had those three words written on an airplane napkin, and I knew it was worth funding.

✨ 2019: Baby Steps

That scribbled-down idea? It started to crystallize.

After months of strategizing, I launched my first scalable offer, The Create Your Purpose® Collective with 29 founding members. For the first time, my purpose and profits began to feel aligned. Dentists were fun and all, but this? This was the work I had been dreaming of doing.

👯 2020: Pandemic + Purpose

2020 was oddly kind to my bottom line.

Looking back, it’s partly because I’d been growing an engaged audience for years—and now, I finally had something meaningful to offer them.

The cultural moment helped too. Amidst layoffs and upheaval, more women had time to explore entrepreneurship. The Collective grew in response.

💉 2021: Uh Oh!

But as we all learned, boom times don’t last.

The post-vaccine world felt different, and so did my business. What worked before stopped working. I found myself asking: how do I make this new balance between purpose and profit sustainable?

It was a hard year of re-evaluation.

🤰 2022: “With Child”

This year was a blur as I juggled business ambitions with growing a tiny human. I got by and did my best. I let my expenses get too high and didn’t realize it until it was too late.

Was my business where I hoped it would be as I stepped away for maternity leave? Nope.
But (spoiler alert): looking back, it was exactly where it needed to be.

💜 2023: Finding Myself Again

The first half of my year was all baby bottles and Ms. Rachel. Coming back into my business was fiery, to say the least. Hormones be damned, I charged ahead. I reminded myself: “Get support. Don’t go it alone. Clarity comes from action.”

By the end of the year, I started to feel a bit more like myself again.

💥 2024: Strategic Refinement

This year was about quiet growth. I refined the Collective to better support seasoned solopreneurs, clarified my message, and shared more boldly online. The result? A business that felt more aligned, resilient. But what still felt like it was missing was my own creativity. After all, a lot of my mental space was taken up by raising a sassy toddler, and I was still struggling to regain my voice.

🌀 2025 (so far): Rebalancing

At the begining of the year, I took on a strategic consulting retainer with a local, women-led architecture firm—an aligned way to flex my marketing and sales skills while easing pressure on the Collective. It’s created space to sustain what I’ve built, explore creative ideas (hello, Substack?), and reconnect with my voice beyond just business. It’s opened me to up to start to explore what Create Your Purpose® could be beyond entrepreneurship, because if there is anything that helps us navigate a world designed to overwhelm us, I believe it can be purpose.

What This Heat Map Doesn’t Show You

What this graph won’t reveal are the twists and turns along the way. The things I never expected to happen that did. The pivots. The letting go. The ego—oh my god, the ego.

The moments when I questioned myself.

The times when I almost threw in the towel.

The late-night spirals, the identity shifts, the tears and spreadsheets.

The personal growth that never shows up on a profit & loss statement.

And yet… there’s this feeling you can only get when you’re looking back and seeing how everything—even the hard stuff—brought you to where you are now:

PRIDE.

My heat map may be nerdy, but it’s also a visual testament to the power of having a clear vision, rooting yourself in what matters most, and taking consistent, messy-but-purposeful action.

What About Your Heat Map?

Even amidst the rollercoaster of highs and lows, looking at this visual makes me proud.

For 12 years, I’ve “kept the lights on” in my business—and I’ve done it on my own terms.

Every decision I made was in service of a bigger vision:

More time freedom. More meaning. More impact.

I hope by sharing my story, I’ve inspired you to rethink your own road to success.

Because remember:

Profits are just one benchmark. It’s the purposeful choices you make to keep your own spark lit—to care for your family, to leave a lasting mark, to (insert your goal here)—that are even more valuable.

So comment and tell me:

What would your heat map reveal—not just about your revenue, but about your resilience?